LightSquared Would Ruin Aviation With System, Carriers Say

Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Philip Falcone’s LightSquared Inc.
wireless service would have “ruinous effects” on aviation
because of signal interference and its plan for a nationwide
data network should be withdrawn, an airline trade group said.

“This matter needs to be put to rest,” Thomas Hendricks,
senior vice president at Airlines for America, said today in
written testimony submitted for a U.S. House hearing.

LightSquared has sought final FCC clearance for its network
since late 2010 against opposition from makers and users of
global-positioning system devices including airlines that say
the service would disrupt navigation gear in cars, tractors and
planes in the U.S.

Signals from the proposed service disrupt many GPS
receivers and no practical solution exists to let Reston,
Virginia-based LightSquared operate soon, U.S. officials said
Jan. 13 after nine months of tests.

LightSquared says GPS device makers should have planned to
accommodate its use of airwaves near those occupied by
navigation equipment. The company, which plans a wholesale high-speed data service covering 260 million people, said the airline
group relies too much on information supplied by makers of GPS
equipment.

Industry Data

“Their information is provided by the GPS industry,”
Terry Neal, a LightSquared spokesman, said in an interview. “It
would not be surprising since the government relied on the GPS
industry to devise the tests and conduct them in secret using a
standard that does not reflect real-life conditions.”

Members of the Washington-based Airlines for America,
formerly known as the Air Transport Association, include Delta
Air Lines Inc., Southwest Airlines Co., AMR Corp.’s American
Airlines, US Airways Group Inc. and United Continental Holdings
Inc., parent of United Airlines.

Today’s hearing was called by the Subcommittee on Aviation
of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

LightSquared’s request to testify was denied, and it was
unfair to have “only one point of view represented,” Lew
Phelps, a spokesman for Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners,
said in an e-mail.

‘Their Opinion’

LightSquared has testified before the panel before and “if
they’d like to testify again we’d be happy to see if we can
arrange an appropriate forum,” Representative Thomas Petri, the
Wisconsin Republican who chairs the subcommittee, said in an
interview. The assertion of unfairness is “their opinion,”
Petri said. “It’s not mine.”

Harbinger Capital has been forced to write down the value
of its $3 billion investment in LightSquared.

LightSquared has offered technical solutions to solve the
interference with aviation receivers, Jeffrey Carlisle, an
executive vice president with the company, said in an interview.

The company’s proposed solutions don’t answer “fundamental
questions of incompatibility,” John Porcari, a deputy secretary
at the Transportation Department, said in an interview today.

Two independent laboratories reviewed and confirmed U.S.
tests of LightSquared that cost the government more than $2
million, Porcari said in testimony.

“The results, especially with precision safety flight
avionics that we use in aircraft, are unacceptable,” he said.

The hearing was called to review issues arising as U.S.
aviation transitions to rely on GPS signals for navigation.

Newark Airport

Representative Blake Farenthold, a Texas Republican, said
he was “troubled” that a ground-based network such as the one
LightSquared plans has the potential for interfering with GPS.

“It seems to me we’re creating a vulnerable system,”
Farenthold said.

Tests of a GPS-based landing system at Newark Liberty
International Airport in 2010 demonstrated that the weak
satellite signal can be knocked out by interference, according
to a committee briefing paper prepared for the hearing.

The landing system, which guided planes to the runway with
GPS navigation instead of the radio beams typically used at
airports, experienced intermittent failures during tests, the
report said.

An investigation revealed that a truck driver who had been
using a jamming device to disable a GPS locator on his company’s
truck had been driving past the airport on the New Jersey
Turnpike. The Federal Communications Commission filed an
enforcement case against the driver, according to the committee.
Radio jamming devices are illegal under U.S. law.

“However, such devices are available and risk both
intentional and unintentional consequences of GPS operations,”
the report said.